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Talk:Celtiberians/History
http://www.fofweb.com/History/MainPrintPage.asp?iPin=EEPI0126&DataType=Ancient&WinType=Free The Celtiberians were those Celts living on the Iberian Peninsula. Because of their contact with native Iberians, they are classified as culturally distinct from other Celts of the central European Hallstatt/La Tène zone, from Britain across France and Germany to Poland. The term Celtiberia is sometimes used specifically for a region in the north-central part of present-day Spain between the Tagus (Tajo) and Ebro Rivers, where the Celtic presence and influence were strongest. But it is also used for all those tribes in the western two-thirds of the peninsula exposed to Celtic influence to any degree. Origins The various Celtic-speaking peoples were the descendants of the tribes of the Bell Beaker and other Bronze Age cultures that before that of the peoples of the Neolithic cultures that developed after the introduction of farming practices to Europe. It is thought that during the Iron Age by about 600 BCE Celtic peoples had settled on the Iberian Peninsula, or Hispania, as the Romans called it, after they had migrated across the Pyrenees from the north. They met and assimilated with a local culture dating to the Late Bronze Age. The fifth-century Greek historian Herodotus places them there by 500 BCE. Their mention by Herodotus, who identifies them as the same people as those living north of the Danube River in central Europe, is the earliest extant written record of Celts anywhere. The name Celtiberi is Roman. Inscriptions in the Iberian and Latin alphabets of the Celto-Iberian language constitute the most extensive body of epigraphical Celtic material earlier than the medieval Irish literature. Contacts with the Iberians in eastern and southern Spain, who traded extensively with Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, and Romans, gave the Celtiberians much stimulus from those cultures. The north-central highland region of Iberia, which would become Celtiberia, shared in the Urnfield phenomenon of other proto-Celtic regions in Europe, in which cremation and deposition of ashes in urns buried in cemeteries replaced inhumation. This practice was also taken up by the Iberians in the northeast. The people engaged in pastoral farming, mostly of sheep and goats. The culture in general seems to date from the Late Bronze Age/Iron Age transition. Study of place-names attests to the presence of what can be called a "proto-Celtic" language quite different from Celto-Iberian, its archaism evident in the preservation of an initial p'' for many words (not to be confused with p-Celtic languages, a later development). Elements of this culture—alternative burial rites, ritual sites, and deity names—continued after the emergence of the Celtiberian culture as a sort of substratum that was slowly disappearing. Affinities between Celtiberians and Iberians seem to be based on elements of this older substratum, which they all held in common. Invasion theories, as elsewhere in lands on the Celtic periphery, have been advanced for the origin of the Celtiberian culture. They explain the available archaeological evidence less well than a process of cultural assimilation and evolution set in motion by both local conditions and the arrival of some by ethnically Celtic groups, probably mostly elites rather than whole peoples. '''Language' The Celtiberians spoke a branch of the Celtic Continental Celtic languages, known as Celto-Iberian, or Hispano-Celtic; the other two Continental branches are Gaulish, spoken in Gaul, and Lepontic, spoken in northern Italy. Celto-Iberian is actually a q-Celtic language, making it closer in origin to the Gaelic branch of the Insular Celtic languages of the British Isles, spoken in Ireland and Scotland, than to p-Celtic Gaulish. The ancient annals of Ireland speak of invasions of tribes from Spain, and this similarity of language may suggest some sort of contact between the two peoples possibly brought about in part through trade. On the other hand Celto-Iberian may have been, as was Irish Gaelic, a language closer to Common Celtic, the ancestor of all the Celtic languages—the relative isolation of the Celtiberians, as did that of the Irish, prevented them from participating in the evolution to p-Celtic elsewhere. Some p-Celtic peoples did migrate there, however. The Celtiberian language absorbed many features from the local non-Indo-European languages of the Iberians. History The heart of the Celtic region was on the hill country and mesetas (plateaus) in present-day north-central Spain between the Tagus (Tajo) and Ebro Rivers. Tribes there included the Arevaci, Belli, Berones, Lobetani, Lusones, Olcades, Palendones, Titti, and Turboletas. The Arevaci eventually dominated the region. Surrounding tribes included the Cantabri, Galli (also the Roman name for Gauls), and Turmogi to the north and the Vaccaei and Vettones to the west. The tribes even farther west, some of them in present-day Portugal—among them the Astures and Lusitani—also adopted some Celtic traits (although the Lusitani are generally discussed as Iberian). The Celtici and Gallaeci, also to the west, were probably more predominantly Celtic in culture, as indicated by their names' resemblance to the names Celtic and Gallic. There were dozens of other tribes who could be classified as Celtiberians in Celtiberia proper as well as surrounding areas. The tribes in the eastern and southern parts of the peninsula, among them the Bastetani, Tartessians, and Vascones, kept their pre-Celtic languages and way of life. Those Iberians living along the coast had the earliest regular contacts with the rest of the Mediterranean world, especially Phoenicians and Greeks, who had trading settlements there. Carthaginians in Spain In 237 BCE the Carthaginians, Phoenicians out of Carthage in North Africa, invaded the Iberian Peninsula and occupied the region south of the Guadalquivir River. They extended their influence farther to the north through alliances with Celtiberian chieftains. Celtiberians, renowned as warriors, were hired as mercenaries by the Carthaginians. They participated under Hannibal in his attack in 219–218 BCE on the Roman-allied city of Saguntum (modern Sagunto), precipitating the Second Punic War, and were with him in his march eastward along the Mediterranean's north coast, where he defeated Gallic tribes (Gauls); across the Alps; and into Italy. The defeat of the Carthaginians by the Romans in 201 BCE in the Second Punic War led to their loss of Spain in addition to some island possessions. Roman Inroads After the war with the Carthaginians the Romans established a greater presence in Spain, at first along the entire Mediterranean coast. In 197 BCE the Romans created two provinces—Hispania Citerior (Hither or Near Spain) and Hispania Ulterior (Farther or Far Spain)—as well as a bureaucracy to rule them. Over the next two centuries they would meet with great resistance from the indigenous tribes. The Lusitani living to the west in present-day Portugal, perhaps partly Celtic, mounted a number of organized revolts against the Romans, in 195–190, 154–150, and 147–139 BCE. In the meantime the Romans waged war in Celtiberia proper, clearing the Ebro Valley of Celtiberian forces in 143 BCE. Ten years later Roman legions under Scipio Aemilianus Africanus Numantinus (Scipio the Younger), after a 16-month siege, destroyed Numantia, the stronghold of the Arevaci on the Douro River. Celtiberian resistance continued, however. In 80 BCE the Roman expatriate Quintus Sertorius, who had been sent to govern Hither Spain, led a campaign against other Roman factions and sought the support of Iberians and Celtiberians. He was defeated by Pompey in 73 BCE, whereupon he was executed. The Lusitani were defeated once and for all by troops under Julius Caesar in 61 BCE, three years before his first campaigns in Gaul. Some Celtiberians and Iberians, as did the Gauls, served in Roman armies and thus were caught up in the power struggles among various factions. In 45 BCE, the year before he was assassinated, Caesar defeated Pompey's sons at Munda in southern Spain. The tribes in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula continued to resist the Roman presence, however—in particular the Astures, Cantabri, and Gallaecai, who in 26 began attacking settlements. The Celtiberians suffered final defeat by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa in 19 BCE, after which all the tribes were pacified. In 13 BCE as part of the provincial system of the Roman Empire the Iberian Peninsula was divided into the provinces Tarraconensis, Lusitania, and Baetica. In 260 CE peoples in Gaul, Spain, and Britain became part of an independent Gallic empire, governed by Marcus Cassianius Latinius Postumus. But in 273 CE the emperor Aurelian defeated the rebels. Germanic Invasions The Carthaginians and Romans were not the only invaders of the Iberian Peninsula. In the late second century Germanic-speaking tribes—the Cimbri and Teutones—crossed the Pyrenees after a victory over Roman forces in southern Gaul in 105 BCE, but they were repelled by Celtiberians by 102 BCE. In later centuries other Germanics invaded the peninsula and wrested control from the Romans. The Vandals and the Suebi occupied Spain in 411 CE; the Visigoths seized lands in southwestern Gaul and Spain in 412–414, driving the Vandals into Africa. In the fifth century the Celtic language died out. By that time the Celtiberian way of life had also passed away. 'Culture ' Economy The Celtiberians, as had other Celts, had agricultural and herding economies. The exchange of goods through trade was also important, although the Celtiberians, living inland, were not a direct part of the extensive Mediterranean trading activity. Yet they traded with the Iberian peoples living to their east, some of whom maintained port cities. The resemblance of the Celto-Iberian language to Irish Gaelic may imply some sort of contact between the two regions; Irish copper and gold had been traded to southern Spain since the Early Bronze Age as part of the Bell Beaker trading system but, as in the Iron Age, northern Iberia was not part of this. Celtiberian chieftains may have benefited from the Carthaginian trading empire through their alliances with Carthaginians in the third century BCE and thus had some contact with Ireland. Government and Society As did Celts in other parts of Europe, Celtiberians lived in small settlements, but they maintained tribal connections and specific territories. The exact social and political organization of village as compared to tribe is not known. Some groups—a number of allied villages—certainly in times of war were ruled by chieftains, but life within the villages themselves is thought to have been communal and egalitarian. The local conditions that fostered the Celtiberian culture, with its social hierarchy and fortified settlements, included the harsh geographical conditions in central Iberia. Seasonal movement of flocks to avoid the dryness of the mesetas in summer and the cold of the high mountains in winter, led to population increase but also to social stratification as the holders of the high summer pastures were enriched. The seasonal movement of flocks also seems to have caused conflicts, leading to the development of a warrior class to protect the flocks from raiders and enforce their passage. The common occurrence in inscriptions of the word ambatus, meaning "client," suggests a system of tenantry and overlordship. The artifacts called tesserae, small bronze inscribed tablets sometimes in the shape of clasped hands, used as tokens of recognition and of hospitality agreements, give a sense of the character of the Celtiberian culture, one of wide-ranging travel over large territories with its concomitant insecurities and conflicts. The Celtiberians adopted innovations from the Iberians, such as the use of currency and an alphabet and the planning of towns on orthogonal (four-way) axes, which ultimately derived from Mediterranean civilization. These elements were introduced to them earlier, by the sixth century BCE, than they were in other Celtic areas and not, as happened with the Gauls, in the context of invasion. Finds such as funeral stelae and laws inscribed on bronze tablets begin to show a strong Roman influence in Celtiberia after the second century BCE. The Celtiberians began to build large oppida (towns) to accommodate mass movements of people from the countryside. Other signs of social evolution include the disappearance of weapons from burials and the advent of urban magistrates. With the increasing Roman influence Celtiberian society became more stratified. Dwellings and Architecture Celtiberian architecture resembled that of Celts in other parts of Europe. Roundhouses were the norm, resembling those of the British Isles rather than of Gaul. The earliest Celtic inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula lived in fortified hilltop settlements, the typical Celtic hill forts. By the third century BCE their compounds—known as castros—became increasingly urbanized with orderly street plans, a process that occurred in Celtic oppida to the north as well. Chevaux-de-frise fortification (sharp stones or other objects set upright in masonry) was sometimes used, a sign that the horse was important in war. During the last pre-Roman phase the Celtiberians were building monumental architecture with great columns derived from the Iberians, as well as Greco-Roman-style villas. Military Practices Historical texts relate that the Celtiberians were both hospitable and fond of war. They had a tradition of duels between champions, and of the devotio, according to which a warrior dedicated his life to his chief. Among other peoples Celtiberian warriors enjoyed a reputation as the finest mercenary infantry of their time. As did their Iberian neighbors they became known as accomplished cavalrymen, riding the local breed of horse known as Lusitano. Technology and Art The Celtiberians became master metalworkers, crafting utilitarian objects, such as horse bits, daggers, and shield fittings, as well as ornamental ones, such as the neck rings known as torcs (torques), brooches, and bangles. They also produced wheel-made pottery and stone sculptures. Although they were influenced by the pre-Celtic Hallstatt and La Tène cultures, their art shows Iberian and also Tartessian influences. A Celtiberian invention, a two-edged sword, was adopted by the Romans. The "antenna-sword," with dual knobs on the pommel suggesting antennae, is typical of regions in Celtic Europe that retained the Urnfield cremation burial rite into the Iron Age. The short sword also used by Celtiberians was probably of Mediterranean origin. They used a Tartessian-style fibula with a spring-loaded pin. The geometric decoration and the use of terra-cotta for their painted pottery show Tartessian influence; the urns used for burial have an S-shaped profile similar to those used in central Europe. In general, proximity to advanced Mediterranean cultures caused the Celtiberians to adopt new technologies earlier than Celts elsewhere. For example, they began using the potter's wheel by the fourth century BCE. Despite Iberian and Mediterranean influences, Celtiberian art, at least until the Roman invasions, retained a profoundly Celtic aesthetic and feeling. Literature The Celtiberians developed a script, partly syllabic and partly alphabetic, from the local Iberian scripts, but only a small number of Celtiberian inscriptions dating from between the sixth and first centuries BCE have been found. They followed the Iberian practice of making large bronze tablets with sacred or legal significance, the former typically used by the Druids for religious purposes. One of these tablets, found at Saragossa and dating from the early first century BCE, has the longest Celtic text to survive from antiquity. Another bronze tablet using the Latin alphabet mentions aqueducts and seems to refer to complex social concepts such as that of public property and to institutions intended to mediate between ethnic groups. With the advent of the Romans, the Celtiberian script was gradually replaced by the Latin alphabet. At least one well-known Roman writer acknowledged his Celtiberian ancestry. The first-century Roman poet known as Martial, born in Spain in the Celtiberian town of Bilbilis, wrote that he was descended from Celts and Iberians both. Other classical authors born in the provinces, even if they had a native strain in their background, did not acknowledge it. But men such as the first-centuries BCE and CE Seneca the Elder (Lucius Annaeus) and the more famous Seneca the Younger, born in Corduba (modern Cordova), an Iberian town in southern Spain on the Guadalquivir, perhaps were at least influenced by the native culture around them. Religion The Celtiberians, as did other Celts, had Druids living among them. Cremation burials were more prevalent among the Celtiberians than La Tène-style inhumations. There were many local variants in the style of cemeteries; urns in some places were buried under tumuli (mounds) and in others set up in rows accompanied by stelae (upright stones carved with figures in relief). The Celtic god Lugh or Lugus, apparently in multiple form, was worshipped in Celtiberia, as attested by an inscription found in Uxma, Spain. "L. L. Urico donated this, sacred to the Lugoves, to the guild of shoemakers." Lugh was connected with crafts and shoemaking in the insular literature of Ireland and Wales. The Matres, the trio of goddesses worshipped in Gaul, had their cult in Celtiberia as well. Other deities known from inscriptions have names with the prefixes Bandu-, Nabia-, and Reve- sometimes attached to a non-Indo-European name; these probably originated with the indigenous people of north-central Iberia whose culture was gradually subsumed by that of the Celtiberians. * * * The problem of classifying Celtiberians calls up the issue of ethnicity versus cultural influence. There is no way to know the degree of Celtic ancestry among the ancient tribes of the Iberian Peninsula, because the degree of intermarriage among migrating and native peoples is not known. Calling a group Celtiberian as opposed to Iberian thus becomes primarily a cultural matter or sometimes a political one, depending on alliances among tribes. The concept of "peoples" throughout prehistoric and historic times is a fluid one, and the labels we place on them become a matter of convenience.